Posts Tagged ‘college’

Graduates across all majors have similar loan amounts after graduation However, payment is a heavier burden for students who graduate with degrees in arts, sports, or humanities. After graduation, salaries increase by an average of 65% in the first five years. However, non-career-oriented degrees start at much lower wages (x axis in the chart above) and thus pay a significantly higher percentage of their income in loan payments.

Overall underemployment rates for recent college grads is similar to levels in the early 1990’s. The main difference, as seen in the bottom chart, is that the share of recent grads with low wage jobs has increased substantially, even though the overall rate hasn’t changed much.

There are only a handful of outlier metros that educated Americans are moving to, most notably the Bay Area and Raleigh, NC. The biggest and most well-known college towns (Ann Arbor, Ithaca, Ames, etc.) have extremely high shares of educated residents, largely due to their academic company-town environments. Click through for a searchable, interactive version.

This chart shows the fascinating pattern of inter-generational wealth and poverty in America. Of those raised in the top income quintile, 40% stay there while 43% of those raised in the bottom stay there. Also, a person raised in the top income quintile who does not go to college has a 2.5x higher change of staying in the top then someone from the bottom 20% who does go to college. Click through for a fascinating look at wealth and the effects of college.

This chart shows the career paths of 15,600 Williams College alumni based on their undergraduate majors. One of the more interesting findings here is the diversity of careers that liberal arts graduates pursue versus scientists. The paths of a chemistry or biology major are significantly narrower than those of English or Political Science. Click through for a more detailed, interactive version.